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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26985469">Smells Like Honey</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawen/pseuds/Dawen'>Dawen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(but no internalized anti-omega stuff so at least there's that), (that's where the internalized ableism comes from lol), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Gen, Iroh's Actual A+ Parenting, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Ozai's A+ Parenting is mentioned, Whump, Zuko's body recognizing Iroh as a safe adult before Zuko consciously realizes it, but like lowkey whump? like Bad Period kind of whump, heat - Freeform, internalized ableism, like at least your body knows what's up, listen this is just 100 percent gen family feels and Zuko doesn't even know it yet, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:48:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,224</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26985469</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawen/pseuds/Dawen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko presented as an omega when he was eleven, but never imprinted on an older alpha like every omega he had ever heard of. Now, in Ba Sing Se, he and Uncle have a rhythm down, an arrangement to help him through the twice-yearly heats – but everything in Ba Sing Se is different from anything Zuko had ever known. So really, it shouldn’t be a surprise when his body’s reactions turn out to be different, too.</p>
<p>(Or, Zuko is miserable because heat makes people miserable, and apparently he can’t even count on his body to react to Uncle’s scent the same way it has been for the last five years. …Or for Uncle’s scent to stay the same.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Iroh &amp; Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Smells Like Honey</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by <a href="https://littleomegaversethings.tumblr.com/post/159779190784/imprinting-pt-1-when-omegas-present-they-will">this Tumblr post</a>:</p>
<p>
  <i>When omegas present they will often imprint on an older alpha that they feel safe with, typically a parent or sibling. Since it’s not always a family member, the bond will also remove any instinct between the alpha and omega to mate with each other. This makes it easier for the alpha to care for the omega during heats in a platonic fashion (cold towels, pain killers, cuddles, food, etc). An imprint bond isn’t permanent, only lasting till the omega either takes a mate or grows out of it (usually late teens). Though there is no mark, <strong>it leaves a scent of honey</strong> on both parties. For the first 1-2 years, it can be very dangerous to separate the alpha and omega for long periods of time. Separation runs the risk of either going feral and hurting themselves.</i>
</p>
<p>And my <i>immediate</i> thought was: but bb Zuko doesn't <i>have</i> a safe alpha...</p>
<p>And here we are :D</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zuko knocked back the cold, tincture-laced tea and curled up on top of his futon covers, putting the cup by the side with a quiet clatter. He was still vaguely outraged at the sheer expense of the omegas’ tincture here in Ba Sing Se, as though omegas were expected to be made of money or go delirious with heat twice a year. In every port he’d been in, omegas’ tincture was the one thing practically guaranteed to have a government-mandated price cap – but Ba Sing Se? Ba Sing Se was another story.</p>
<p>He dragged a hot, cloth-wrapped brick to his belly and gave it a surreptitious extra pulse of heat. The tincture decreased the horrible all-encompassing need, the arousal, the tight desire to be bred and impregnated – and also nearly eliminated post-heat non-pregnant depression – but it didn’t do a thing for other heat symptoms like cramps and elevated temperature. And the other medicines on the market did barely anything, if they didn’t make heat worse. </p>
<p>Zuko, like any other omega in a new city, had kept his ear to the ground ever since he and Uncle had arrived – so he knew there was no way to find something that would actually <em>help</em> in the Lower Ring. Again with the ridiculous idea that all omegas were made of money. Ugh. He hoped there was some sort of program for young, newly-presented, teenage omegas to get it, but from what he’d seen of Ba Sing Se… yeah, no, he wasn’t holding his breath.</p>
<p>He pressed his sweat-damp cheek to a cool portion of the futon, yawning, and pulled the brick closer against his abdomen as the first cramp started. He felt hot all over, like a fever without the chills, but the combination of external heat and pressure was the only thing Zuko had found to help the cramps. Right now the pain was mostly localized in a single spot in his pelvis, but he could feel spindly tendrils of pain stretching through the muscles between his hip bones. Soon, though, they would spread out from his pelvis, the ache spreading around his hips to his back to stretch up to his shoulders and neck, and the muscles of his inner thighs seizing up.</p>
<p>On his ship, Zuko would curl up in a box – metal, to retain the heat from his firebending, and small enough that he could barely fit, to put pressure on most of his body. That obviously wasn’t an option here, but there was a small stack of bricks by the head of his futon that he could heat up and tuck around his body as the cramps spread. Hopefully it would be enough.</p>
<p>Over the next few hours, the pain spread like Zuko knew it would and he started to feel slick slowly seeping out of him. The pile of bricks dwindled as the cramps spread, starting with a brick clamped between Zuko’s thighs and moving to a whole line of them on his spine, braced against the wall so they wouldn’t tip over when he pressed into them.  At one point he fumbled for an old set of underclothes to wedge into the ones he was already wearing, letting them soak up the slick in lieu of the too-expensive sea sponges that were so common in the Fire Nation and so rare in Ba Sing Se. Omegas’ tincture could stop slick production in a few lucky omegas, and decrease it substantially in others, but Zuko wasn’t sure if he was one of them or not. He was a little afraid to test it – because what if he was? He produced a disgusting amount of the stuff when he <em>did</em> take the tincture.</p>
<p>Eventually, Zuko was blearily aware of a tea tray being set down outside his door and a quiet knock, and then his uncle’s footsteps shuffling away. Something tugged at Zuko’s stomach, hearing those footsteps get quieter, further away – the knowledge that his guardian was leaving him – he was being abandoned by his only protector, no attempts at reassurance, not even trying to communicate at <em>all</em> –</p>
<p>What.</p>
<p>Zuko froze in confusion, one hand stretched to the closed door, mouth half open, crouched with one foot planted on the floor and the other still on the futon.</p>
<p><em>That</em> wasn’t a typical reaction.</p>
<p>He and Uncle had had this arrangement since before the ship, nearly since that humiliating first heat when Zuko didn’t bond to <em>any</em> alpha, let alone his father like most young omegas. No alpha to help him properly, no sense of safety from anyone. No one had known if he could ever bond properly, for either a child’s imprint bond or a romantic one – just his luck, presenting unusually young and turning out defective, anyway. He had never reacted like this to Uncle’s actions.</p>
<p>In fact, the first time Uncle had tried to enter his denroom with food and medicine, Zuko had had a panic attack.</p>
<p>Zuko swallowed dryly and eased himself backwards until he was fully sitting on the futon again. Waited until he could no longer hear Uncle, then waited again for a count of fifty breaths. Tucked his warm bricks to the side and quietly crept to his door. The tea tray just outside held a full teapot and a bowl of mush with a spoon. There was no cup, because Uncle knew Zuko already had one. Zuko couldn’t tell the type of tea for the overwhelming smell of Uncle, which was pinging every sense of safety in his brain – that wasn’t a standard reaction, either, not the sense of safety nor the intensity of Uncle’s scent, so Zuko dragged the tray inside and shut the door as firmly as he dared. He leaned against it, wide-eyed, but his heart calmed down as Uncle’s scent wafted from the tray and permeated his makeshift denroom.</p>
<p>Uncle’s familiar scent was easily three times as strong as normal, even accounting for Zuko’s heat-enhanced sense of smell. There was a faint scent of honey to it, which didn’t make sense, Zuko had never smelled that before...</p>
<p>Really, what was going <em>on?</em></p>
<p>He hadn’t felt so unsure of his own body since the first year after he presented. Back then, it was typical growing-up confusion of the changes brought by puberty, combined with the confusion of not presenting properly and not imprinting. But at least he’d had a <em>guideline</em>; he had tutors and Uncle to give uncomfortable, awkward talks about puberty and far too many visits with far too many omega physicians about the lack of bonding. Now? Who could he go to now, who might have answers? Who could he ask without spontaneously combusting from embarrassment?</p>
<p>(He’d done that, once. Luckily the flames didn’t tend to be hot enough to scar. It was a self-perpetuating cycle, because spontaneous combustion was anything but subtle and knowing other people knew he’d done it just made him more embarrassed. Also, it might not scar but it certainly still hurt.)</p>
<p>Zuko ate the mush and drank the tea, reheated his bricks, and curled up again to wallow in misery and confusion. The heat shouldn’t last longer than another day; he could figure this out once his body cooled down and the pain dissolved.</p>
<p>And while he was at it, he’d figure out how to break out a ten-ton bison to “ransom” to the Avatar.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yeah, Zuko goes from heat straight to that inner-war fever thing. And from there to the catacombs, where I imagine things played out much the way they did in the show. Perhaps a little more hesitation before Zuko chooses to follow Azula. The original headcanon that spawned this says that it’s dangerous to separate an omega from their imprint alpha until the bond naturally dissolves on its own; I’m going to say that “separation for a long time” means “more than half a year” (aka, the dangers arise during heat, and since Zuko’s heats fall in the spring and autumn, he’ll be okay to be away for a summer) OR right now there is the beginnings of an imprint, but the bond itself is not fully formed yet. And since Zuko has no idea he’s finally imprinting, he doesn’t know to keep pressing and fully form it. (Also, yes, he’s sixteen or seventeen and therefore probably would have only a year or two before the imprint bond would dissolve.)</p>
<p>In case it’s not obvious: a omega physician is basically an ob-gyn for omegas. Also, I imagine the sea sponges in the Fire Nation are trimmed into a butt plug shape for male omegas (or at least, for rich male omegas). Either that or they just grow that way… </p>
<p>Also the alpha/beta/omega terms just? feel wrong?? in the ATLA setting? But neither my friend nor I could find a good-sounding substitute so *throws confetti* Greek terms it is!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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